“Throughout history, it has been the inaction of those who could have acted; the indifference of those who should have known better; the silence of the voice of justice when it mattered most; that has made it possible for evil to triumph.”
Haile Selassie

Tuesday, October 22, 2013

Civil Discourse Now Host Mark Small Clings to Long Discredited "Overpopulation" Myth While Looming Population Decline Represents Greater Threat

I was visiting Mark Small and his wife at his home a few months ago when I first heard Mark casually mention the danger of world overpopulation. I checked the calendar on my smart phone. I thought perhaps Mark's bathroom that I had just returned from visiting had acted as a vortex, transporting me back to the 1970s when fears of overpopulation (and global cooling) was cause célèbre. After all, I thought it was at least 30 years since anyone seriously believed the long-discredited overpopulation myth. But Mark is not just "anyone." He is a special kind of person who clings fiercely to his cherished 1970s liberalism, never letting the inconvenient facts of the last four decades persuade him to update his view of the world. While the realities of life cause most people to become more conservative as they grow older, Mark has fiercely resisted that political maturation process.

My recent story on the overpopulation sign in the Brazil, Indiana high school, prompted Mark to write on his Civil Discourse blog that I missed the point of the sign, which he says is really about the dangers of world overpopulation. While it is doubtful that visitors from India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and China, those few countries in the world where population increases have been dramatic, were visiting that Hoosier high school, I will take the "world overpopulation" bait and prove, once again, that Mark is wrong.

"UN population estimates put the World's total, by 2050, at between 8.3
and 10.9 billion. As one example, our oceans have been over-fished---an
article in National Geographic, "Plenty of Fish in the Sea? Not Always,"
notes the devastation wrought on our oceans by commercial fleets of
fish trawlers. People starve to death in Asia and Africa---and the
United States, too. But more people means more use of global resources
to keep people alive."

A somewhat more arcane milestone, meanwhile, generated no media
coverage at all: It took humankind 13 years to add its 7 billionth.
That’s longer than the 12 years it took to add the 6 billionth—the first
time in human history that interval had grown. (The 2 billionth, 3
billionth, 4 billionth, and 5 billionth took 123, 33, 14, and 13 years,
respectively.) In other words, the rate of global population growth has
slowed. And it’s expected to keep slowing. Indeed, according to experts’
best estimates, the total population of Earth will stop growing within
the lifespan of people alive today.

And then it will fall.

This is a counterintuitive notion in the United States, where we’ve
heard often and loudly that world population growth is a perilous and
perhaps unavoidable threat to our future as a species. But population
decline is a very familiar concept in the rest of the developed world,
where fertility has long since fallen far below the 2.1 live births per
woman required to maintain population equilibrium. In Germany, the
birthrate has sunk to just 1.36, worse even than its low-fertility neighbors
Spain (1.48) and Italy (1.4). The way things are going, Western Europe
as a whole will most likely shrink from 460 million to just 350 million
by the end of the century. That’s not so bad compared with Russia and
China, each of whose populations could fall by half. As you may not be surprised to learn, the Germans have coined a polysyllabic word for this quandary: Schrumpf-Gesellschaft, or “shrinking society.”

American media have largely ignored the issue of population decline
for the simple reason that it hasn’t happened here yet. Unlike Europe,
the United States has long been the beneficiary of robust immigration.
This has helped us not only by directly bolstering the number of people
calling the United States home but also by propping up the birthrate,
since immigrant women tend to produce far more children than the
native-born do.

But both those advantages look to diminish in years to come. A report issued last month by the Pew Research Center found that immigrant births fell
from 102 per 1,000 women in 2007 to 87.8 per 1,000 in 2012. That helped
bring the overall U.S. birthrate to a mere 64 per 1,000 women—not
enough to sustain our current population.

Moreover, the poor, highly fertile countries that once churned out
immigrants by the boatload are now experiencing birthrate declines of
their own. From 1960 to 2009, Mexico’s fertility rate tumbled from 7.3 live births per woman to 2.4, India’s dropped from six to 2.5, and Brazil’s
fell from 6.15 to 1.9. Even in sub-Saharan Africa, where the average
birthrate remains a relatively blistering 4.66, fertility is projected to fall below replacement level
by the 2070s. This change in developing countries will affect not only
the U.S. population, of course, but eventually the world’s.

Why is this happening? Scientists who study population dynamics point to a phenomenon called “demographic transition.”

“For hundreds of thousands of years,” explains Warren Sanderson, a
professor of economics at Stony Brook University, “in order for humanity
to survive things like epidemics and wars and famine, birthrates had to
be very high.” Eventually, thanks to technology, death rates started to
fall in Europe and in North America, and the population size soared. In
time, though, birthrates fell as well, and the population leveled out.
The same pattern has repeated in countries around the world. Demographic
transition, Sanderson says, “is a shift between two very different
long-run states: from high death rates and high birthrates to low death
rates and low birthrates.” Not only is the pattern well-documented, it’s
well under way: Already, more than half the world’s population is
reproducing at below the replacement rate.

....

And in the long term—on the order of centuries—we could be looking at the literal extinction of humanity.

That might sound like an outrageous claim, but it comes down to simple math. According to a 2008 IIASA report,
if the world stabilizes at a total fertility rate of 1.5—where Europe
is today—then by 2200 the global population will fall to half of what it
is today. By 2300, it’ll barely scratch 1 billion. (The authors of the
report tell me that in the years since the initial publication, some
details have changed—Europe’s population is falling faster than was
previously anticipated, while Africa’s birthrate is declining more
slowly—but the overall outlook is the same.) Extend the trend line, and
within a few dozen generations you’re talking about a global population
small enough to fit in a nursing home.

2 comments:

Mexico had a population of 38,420,000 in 1960, today it 114,940,00. Is Mexico better off and richer because of their population growth?? The US had a population of roughly 180,000,000 in 1960, and today an estimated 316,000,000.

Certainly, 316,000,000 people use up resources faster than 180,000,000. We have to drill more, dig deeper, and harvest more fish. With maybe a few exceptions wars are started because of resources or the lack thereof.

What harm would their be in Europe's population declining to 350 Million from 460 million??

If humanity goes extinct we will join a long list of species. If we do go extinct I do not think it will be because of lack of breeding.

About Me

I have been an attorney since the Fall of 1987. I have worked in every branch of government, including a stint as a Deputy Attorney General, a clerk for a judge on the Indiana Court of Appeals, and I have worked three sessions at the Indiana State Senate.
During my time as a lawyer, I have worked not only in various government positions, but also in private practice as a trial attorney handing an assortment of mostly civil cases.
I have also been politically active and run this blog in an effort to add my voice to those calling for reform.